New Data on the Laws Governing the Development of Capitalism in Agriculture

PART ONE—Capitalism and Agriculture in the United States of America

7. Machinery and Hired Labour in
Agriculture

Letus consider another form of capital investment in land which
      is technically different from the form examined
      above—implements and machinery. All European agricultural
      statistics provide irrefutable evidence that the larger the farm
      acreage, the greater is the proportion of farms using all types
      of machines and the greater the number of machines used. The
      superiority of big farms in this highly important respect has
      been established beyond doubt. In this field, too, American
      statisticians have a rather unconventional approach: neither
      implements nor farm machinery are recorded separately, only
      their total value being given. Such data may, of course, be less
      exact in each individual case, but taken as a whole they allow
      definite comparisonsbetween divisions and between groups of
      farms—comparisons which are impossible with other kinds of
      data.

Beloware the figures for farm implements and machinery by
      divisions:

Averageper acreof all farmland($)

Theformer slave-owning South, the area of share-cropping,
      occupies a bottom place in the use of machinery. The value of
      implements and machinery per acre—for its three
      divisions—is one-third, one-quarter, one-fifth of the
      figures for the intensive states of the North. The latter lead
      the rest and, in particular, are far ahead of the West North
      Central states, America’s most agricultural area and her
      granary, which superficial observers still frequently regard as
      a model area of capitalism and of the use of machinery.

Itshould be noted that the American statistical method of
      determining the value of machinery, as well as of land,
      livestock, buildings, etc., per acre of all farmland and not per
      acre of improved land, understates the superiority of the
      “intensive” areas of the North and cannot, in general, be
      considered correct. The difference between the divisions in
      regard to the proportion of improved acreage is very great: in
      the West, it is as low as 26.7% for the Mountain states, and as
      high as 75.4% for the East North Central states in the
      North. For the purposes of economic statistics, improved land is
      undoubtedly of much greater importance than total acreage. In
      New England, improved acreage in farms and its proportion of the
      total has decreased substantially, especially since 1880,
      probablyunder the impact of competition from the free lands of
      the West (i.e., free from ground-rent, from tribute to the
      landowning gentry). At the same time, the use of machinery in
      this division is very extensive and the value of machinery per
      acre ofimproved landis especially high. In 1910, it
      amounted to $7 per acre, while in the Middle Atlantic States it
      was about $5.50 and not more than $2-3 in the other divisions.

Again,the division with thesmallestfarms, in terms
      of acreage, turns out to have thelargestcapital
      investments in land in the form of machinery.

Comparingthe Middle Atlantic, one of the “intensive” divisions
      of the North, with the most extensive region of the North, the
      West North Central, we discover that as far as improved acreage
      per farm is concerned, that of the former isless than half
      that of the latter—62.6 acres as against
      148.0—while the value of machinery used isgreater—$358 per farm as against $332. The smaller
      farms are thus larger enterprises in terms of-machinery used.

Westill have to compare the data on the intensive nature of
      agriculture with the data on the employment of hired labour. I
      already gave these figures in brief above, in Chapter 5. We must
      now examine them in greater detail by divisions .

Thisshows, firstly, that capitalism is undoubtedly much more
      developed in the agriculture of the Northern intensive states
      than in that of the extensive states; secondly, that in the
      former, capitalism is developing faster than in the latter;
      thirdly, that the division with the smallest farms, New England,
      has both the highest level of development of capitalism in
      agriculture and the highest rate of its development. There the
      increase of expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved
      land is 86%; the Pacific states come second in this
      respect. California, where, as I have said, “small-scale”
      capitalist fruit-raising is rapidly developing, is also the
      leader in this respect among the Pacific states.

TheWest North Central division, with the largest farm acreages
      (an average of 148 acres in 1910, counting improved land only)
      and with the most rapid and steady growth of farm acreages since
      1850, is commonly regarded as the “model” capitalist region of
      American agriculture. We have now seen that this contention is
      profoundly erroneous. The extent to which hired labour is used
      is certainly the best and most direct indicator of the
      development of capitalism. And it tells us that America’s
      “granary”, the region of the much vaunted “wheat factories”,
      which attract so much attention, islesscapitalist
      than the industrial and intensively farmed region, where the
      indication of agricultural progress is not an increase in
      improved acreage but anincreasein capital investments
      in the land, together with a simultaneousreductionof
      the acreage.

Itis quite possible to imagine that with the use of machinery
      the improvement of the “black soil” or unploughed virgin lands
      in general can proceed very rapidly despite a small increase in
      the employment of hired labour. In the West North Central states
      expenditure on hired labour per acre of improved land was $0.56
      in 1899, and $0.83 in 1909, an increase of only 48%. In New
      England, where the improved area is decreasing and not
      increasing and where the average size of farms is decreasing and
      not in creasing, expenditure on hired labour was not only very
      much higher both in 1899 ($2.55 per acre) and in 1909 ($4.76 per
      acre), but had grown during the period at a much faster rate
      (+86%).

Theaverage farm in New England isone-fourththe size
      of farms in the West North Central states (38.4 as against 148
      acres), yet its average expenditure on hired labour isgreater: $277 as against $240. Consequently, the
      reduction in the size of farms means in such cases that a
      greater amount of capital is invested in agriculture, and that
      the capitalist nature of agriculture is intensified; it
      signifies a growth of capitalism and capitalist production.

Whilethe West North Central states, which comprise 34.3% of the
      total improved acreage in the U.S.A., are the most typical
      division of “extensive” capitalist agriculture, theMountainstates offer an example of similar extensive
      farming in conditions of the most rapid colonization. Here less
      hired labour is employed, in terms of the proportion of farms
      employing labour, but the average expenditure on hired labour is
      very much higher than in the West North Central division. But in
      the former the employment of hired labour increased at a slower
      rate than in any other division of America (only +22%). This
      type of evolution was apparently due to the following
      conditions. In this division, colonization and the distribution
      of homesteads are extremely widespread. The area under crops
      increased more than in any other division: by 89% from 1900 to
      1910. The settlers, the owners of the homesteads, naturally
      employ little hired labour, at any rate when starting their
      farms. On the other hand, hired labour must be employed on a
      very large scale, firstly, by some latifundia, which are
      especially numerous in this division as in the West in general;
      and secondly, by farms raising special and highly capitalist
      crops. In some states of this division, for instance, a very
      high proportion of the total crop value comes from fruits
      (Arizona—6%, Colorado—10%), and vegetables
      (Colorado—11.9%, Nevada—11.2%), and so forth.

Insumming up, I must say the following: Mr. Himmer’s assertion
      that “there are no areas where colonization is no longer
      continuing, or where large-scale capitalist agriculture is not
      decaying and is not being replaced by family-labour farms”, is a
      mockery of the truth, and entirely contrary to the actual
      facts. The New England division, where there is no colonization
      at all, where farms are smallest, wherefarming is most intensive, shows the highest level of capitalism
      in agriculture and the highest rate of capitalist
      development. This conclusion is most essential and basic for an
      understanding of the process of capitalist development in
      agriculture in general, because the intensification of
      agriculture and the reduction in the average farm acreage that
      goes with it is not some accidental, local, casual phenomenon,
      but one that iscommonto all civilized
      countries. Bourgeois economists of every stripe make a host of
      mistakes when considering data on the evolution of agriculture
      (as in Great Britain, Denmark, and Germany) because they are not
      familiar enough with this general phenomenon, they have not
      given it enough thought and have not understood or analysed it.